Myth Buster 16: Taking Home a Starfish Can Bring You Wealth Luck

In my recent trip to the world famous resort island of Boracay, while me and my friends were just relaxing at one of the Casitas of Ariel’s Pointe, I came across a Finnish woman who I noticed was holding a starfish and was putting it in a plastic container.

While I cannot say that I’m a hardcore environmentalist, the truth is being a Feng Shui practitioner and a Buddhist, it’s impossible not to be a little environmentalist. It is simply part of the practice. So I decided to intervene put on a smile and nicely ask her what is she doing with the starfish. She smiled back at me and told me that there is a Finnish belief that when you accidentally step on a starfish and you decide to keep it, it will surely bring you a lot of good luck.

I first appreciated the starfish and told her that it is illegal to bring the starfish home and that she might be apprehended at the port. The truth is I’m really not sure whether there is such a law; I just decided to tell her the most logical thing. Explaining that bringing the starfish home is not good for the environmentalist, much more for the starfish, will be a tough job because she’s already on her 40s and she should know that already, so I decided to take the most effective route which is about her personal safety and that it being illegal. While I don’t know whether there is such a law in the country, I believe that it is the most logical thing to have. I’m glad she listened and decided to throw it back to the water.

This is the first time I heard about starfish bringing wealth luck, but this is my take on it. If you came across a starfish on the shore, it is really good to throw it back to the water because on the shore for a long time without water, the starfish will surely die. By throwing it back (and yes you throw it back as far as you can so that it will not be washed ashore again, and no it won’t hurt the starfish) you would have saved the starfish from its eventual death, thus creating some good karma for yourself which might bring you some luck. However, bringing it home will surely kill the starfish, with a dead starfish not only did you create a tremendous amount of negative karma for yourself but also keeping a dead starfish is literally keeping a yin or negative energy. Both the negative karma and the yin energy will definitely bring a lot of bad luck for you.

So the next time you see a starfish on the shore, appreciate it a little and throw it back to the water to create some good karma for yourself.